Citizen Patriot File PhotoThis explosion and fire at the Southern Michigan Prison arsenal on March 31, 1967 killed two corrections officers and changed the way Michigan prisons stored weaponry and ammunition.

It used to be relatively common that weapons, ammunition, tear gas and flares all were stored together in the arsenals of Michigan's prisons.

An explosion in Jackson's Southern Michigan Prison arsenal on March 31, 1967, that killed two corrections officers and grabbed national headlines changed all that.

"It was a hell of an explosion," said Charles Utess, 84, of Jackson, who acted as the prison's public relations man back then. "It was massive."

A guard on the prison's north wall said a large fireball that looked like an atomic blast shot out of the arsenal windows immediately after the 6 p.m. explosion that killed corrections officers Max H. Hinckley, 57, of Jackson, and Joseph D. Crater, 25, of North Adams.

Utess was the 42-year-old administrative assistant to then-Warden George A. Kropp. It was the day after pay day, and he had gathered with some of his prison co-workers for a friendly poker game. They all rushed to the scene after a phone call alerted them to the accident.

"It was a mess," Utess said. "Our first thought was to get those guys out of there."

"We hooked a chain to some of the bars on the windows and tried to pull them off with one of the fire trucks," Utess said. "All it did was pull the bumper off the truck."

The explosion also knocked out an electronic gate system, so keys were needed to open gates in the main corridor leading to the arsenal. In all the smoke and confusion, the right ones couldn't immediately be singled out. Firefighters from Blackman and Leoni townships and the prison tried to pump water in through the barred windows.

Several trustees, who were members of the prison fire department, helped clear away debris.

"The only trouble with them was that they were too brave," said an unnamed prison official at the time in a Citizen Patriot article. "They didn't care about the smoke or the flames. They just wanted to get those two out."

It took nearly an hour to reach the pair. Their badly charred bodies were found near a door leading from the arsenal into the main corridor that connected administrative offices with the rest of the prison. It looked as if both men were attempting to get to the door when overcome by flames and smoke. An autopsy revealed they both died from extensive burns.

"There really wasn't a lot any of us could do," Utess said. "I was able to identify the bodies."

Hinckley, originally from Paw Paw, had worked as a guard in Detroit before joining the Jackson prison staff in 1954. His co-workers said he had a good sense of humor and was known to many as "the man who handed out our paychecks." Much of his time was spent in the arsenal cleaning, repairing and reloading guns and molding bullets.

"Working in the arsenal was a preferred job for a lot of the guards, especially if they had weapons skills," said former Warden Charles Anderson, 78, who was then the 35-year-old administrator in charge of the prison's reception diagnostic center. "I understood Hinckley was that kind of guy."

Crater, who graduated from North Adams High School in 1960, had given up cutting hair in Battle Creek to take a prison job. While Hinckley was inside the arsenal, he was standing watch in the glass-enclosed security "bubble" between the arsenal and the main prison corridor.

Tear gas, riot equipment, ammunition, kegs of raw gunpowder and more than 80 percent of the prison's guns were destroyed.

The Michigan State Police and other state penal institutions quickly stepped in to supply a new arsenal until the state Senate Appropriations Committee transferred $20,000 from the state corrections department's supply funds to replace the lost weapons.

Sabotage was quickly ruled out since inmates had no unsupervised access to the arsenal. Consumers Power Co. also quickly ruled out a gas leak.

It took several days for the Michigan State Police crime lab in East Lansing to determine that Hinckley likely was repairing a jammed rifle when it fired and hit magnesium flares that ignited and in turn ignited the gunpowder.

The prison's visitor room, another maximum security room because of its location between security gates, was used as a temporary arsenal. Restoration of the facility didn't start until December 1967, and it took one year to rebuild it. Inmate labor was used at all stages of reconstruction.

When it was done, the new arsenal incorporated safety features that hopefully would help prevent loss of life in the event of another such accident. They included an emergency crash door that opened on touch and an automated sprinkler system. A powder magazine was constructed in a separate location. Storing gunpowder in the same facility as the weapons also was banned in all state prisons, as was the loading of ammunition in the arsenal.

"It was an ugly, destructive accident that took two lives," Utess said. "You never forget those kinds of things."